en pointe
by arabesque05
Summary: Matthew doesn't really know much about ballet; but he knows a lot about finances and how to run a business, which was the whole point of bringing him into the company in the first place. Still, it doesn't prevent Mary from looking at him as if he were a fly found in her soup. Modern day ballet AU.


**en pointe**

**i.**

Edith has been Mary's understudy for the last eight years, though it's probably closer to the truth to say that Edith has been Mary's understudy since the first day Edith put on her pointe shoes. It's not something they really talk about-Edith certainly has no desire to bring up the subject and Mary fancies herself above that sort of competition-but everyone else does. Every now and then, when the rumor mill is slow, the tabloids like to pick at the matter as if were an itchy scab, huge block letter headlines declaring that the Crawley sisters are feuding (again/still), with many terrible puns on 'bad blood' and speculations re: when one sister or the other would be departing Downton Abbey to join The Royal Ballet (Mary) or Northern Ballet (Edith).

"I could join The Royal Ballet if I wanted to," snaps Edith, throwing a copy of _The Sun_ down onto the breakfast table.

Mary butters her toast with probably more attention than it warrants. "Northern Ballet's nothing to be ashamed of," she says, with a faint smile, and it's about as condescending as if she'd said, _Why Edith, you could be prima ballerina assoluta of The Royal Ballet if you really wanted to. _Mary doesn't mean it at all.

**ii.**

"_Plies_," instructs Cora, "and then _tendus_, and then _degages_. Take your time with them; I want everyone warmed up properly. Oh, good, O'brien; you're here."

It's morning company class, earlier than some of the newer members of the _corps_ are yet used to, but no one is sluggish this morning. The company choreographer has paid them a visit, shadowed as she always is by her personal assistant, and it's no secret why they're here. Casting is starting for the new production, and Cora has always liked screening her _corps_ before the more formal audition process.

For the most part, she stays to the side of the room, sometimes moving to the front, sometimes to the back, observing. Every so often, she turns her head and speaks quietly to O'Brien, who trails faithfully behind, and O'Brien nods and makes a note in the notepad she carries.

"Thomas looked well today," says O'Brien, afterwards, as they leave the studio.

"Oh, O'Brien," sighs Cora. "You always think Thomas looks well. His form during the _rond de jambes_ was a little off, I thought."

"Not terribly," persists O'Brien. "And I do often think he looks well, because he does. He's very good, Thomas."

"William's been coming along very nicely, though," says Cora. "And he's so terribly earnest."

"It's because he's so young," says O'Brien. "He hasn't much experience yet; it might be unkind to give him too much responsibility yet."

"Perhaps," says Cora. "Well, we'll see. Type up the notes if you would, O'Brien; thank you."

**iii.****  
**  
Cora Crawley, before she became a Crawley, had danced with the New York City Ballet for a number of seasons. A guest director from England came to visit the company however, and the ensuing whirlwind romance probably overshadowed that season's production in the papers. Afterwards, Cora retired from dancing and took up choreography and bore her husband three daughters. The critics have difficulty in agreeing as to which of those three events had greater impact on the ballet community. The tabloids are unanimously in favor of the daughters, who are all very pretty, very rich, and very good for business.

"Rubbish, all of it," grumbles Carson, entering the office he shares with Mrs. Hughes. He carries an armful of confiscated tabloid papers, which Carson has forbidden the production crew from bringing into the theater. It is a decree he enforces with a militancy second only to his enforcement of the 'no promotional material from any other dance company' decree.

(The production crew generally roll their eyes behind his back, and pull out their smart phones, and finish reading online the article they'd been in the middle of; but they bear it all with relatively good humor.)

"Oh, Mr. Carson," says Mrs. Hughes, setting down the order forms she'd been looking over. "You can't always let what the rags write bother you so."

"I wouldn't, if members of our own company didn't help finance the spreading of such lies and untruths," says Carson, dumping the papers into the trash bin next to the door. More legendary than Cora's dancing career or Robert's directorial talent is Carson's devotion to Downton and the Crawleys. "Absolutely rubbish."

"Ah," says Mrs. Hughes, knowingly. "Is it Mary again?" It's usually Mary. Not that Mary is particularly more given to scandal than her sisters, but hers tend to be higher-profile.

"It is not 'Mary again,'" scowls Carson. "And even if it were, you needn't say it like that."

Mrs. Hughes raises her eyebrows at him, but doesn't push the point. Carson's always had an inexplicable soft spot for the eldest daughter. Mrs. Hughes doesn't-Mary's a bit too cold and haughty for her taste, though Carson steadfastly refuses to admit the point (something about 'reserved' and 'not inappropriately proud' and really, he makes Mary sound like some Mr. Darcy out of a Regency novel)-but each to their own.

"Well," says Mrs. Hughes, "come here and help me take a look at these order forms. Mrs. Pattmore is keeps forgetting to do inventory on the fabric supply and I haven't the faintest idea how much muslin we need."  
**  
****iv.**

Branson has a classical pianist's training, and these days plays accompaniment to practice sessions. He's played more Tchaikovsky and Delibes than probably anyone really should. It's not his favorite thing (_Sugar-Plum Fairies_ is the background music of his nightmares) but it's a living.

"That's awfully depressing," says Sybil, who hangs back after practice. She presses a few keys on the very high octaves of the keyboard, and the notes tinkle, like something from a toy piano. Things are somehow always simple and lovely and filled with childlike wonderment when Sybil is around, Branson finds.

"It's all right," says Branson. "It's not _bad_ music, in any case."

"No," agrees Sybil. "But what do you like, really? Yourself?"

"I-" Branson stares up at her, where she leans against the side of the piano. Her hair is curling a little at the temples, damp with sweat. "I like jazz," he says.

"Yeah?" smiles Sybil. She looks around, and leans closer to whisper conspiratorially, "Me too. Much better than_Fantasie-Impromptu_, in any case."

"Oh," says Branson, struck. "Oh, you-you do?"

"I mean," Sybil laughs, "Thelonius Monk is just such an excellent name, don't you think?"

Yes, yes; Branson does think so. Branson thinks so, very much.

**v.**

Something else Mary and Edith never talk about: Edith had been the one to leak Mary's first major scandal to the papers; Mary had been the one to get Edith's fiancee to call off the wedding and move to Tunisia.

Edith aims at Mary's professional life, and Mary aims at Edith's personal life. Sometimes, when she's drunk too much wine and read too much Nabokov, Mary thinks it's because they can't stand in the other what they haven't for themselves. Sometimes, when it's raining outside and her joints hurt with a twenty-year-old sort of pain, Mary wonders if maybe Edith hadn't got the better end of that deal: there's not that much to be said for fame when you come home to a dark apartment and wake up to an empty bed and have no special person's face to search for among the audience during the annual Christmas _Nutcracker_ performance.

But then, under the hot bright stage lights: cheeks flushed under the grease paint and beaming so wide it hurt and faced with the thunderous applause of a standing ovation, Mary thinks, _fuck that._

**vii.****  
**  
Sybil's been sneaking out to modern dance performances, and she invites Branson along one weekend. "We'll go to a jazz club afterwards," she says. "If you'd like."

"And beforehand," says Branson, "you'll let me buy you dinner."

She gives him a long look. "Will I?" she says.

"That is," says Branson. "Please. May I?"

"Well," says Sybil, drawing the syllable out. "I'm not really that sort of girl, you know. Dinner and a movie."

"I see," says Branson, and notices the way her mouth twitches at the corners. So he says, "Then-what sort of girl are you, Sybil?"

"Drinks!" she says, brightly. "Won't that be better? We'll go Dutch. But you have to promise to drink something terribly pink with me."

**viii.**

Matthew doesn't really know much about ballet; but he knows a lot about finances and how to run a business, which was the whole point of bringing him into the company into the first place, so that works out. Still, it doesn't prevent Mary from looking at him as if he were a fly found in her soup. (Well, there was also that time she'd overheard some of his remarks, and it was all very _Pride and Prejudice_-but he'd immediately apologized. Or, well, as soon as he'd gathered his wits again, because he wasn't _blind_, and Mary is-...Mary. In any case, it wasn't like she hadn't given as good as she got. There's really nothing passive about Mary in the slightest. She's rather magnificent in that regard.)

"You're terribly daft, aren't you?" says Cousin Violet, who doesn't exactly own the company anymore but it's a technicality that makes very little difference in the day-to-day management of things. She's wearing one of her expressions; Matthew would call it 'unimpressed' but Cousin Violet is always unimpressed.

"How so?" says Matthew, rather used to these sort of remarks from Cousin Violet now.

"It's not just that you know nothing about ballet," says Cousin Violet. "You must realize that Robert means to make you inherit."

"The dance company?" says Matthew, surprised. "No-that's not. I wouldn't haven't the faintest idea how to run it, in the first place; and surely Mary-she'd be much more suited-"

"Yes," sniffs Cousin Violet. "Mary rather agrees."

So, there's that.

Sometimes though, if practice has gone well or there's been a good review in the papers or some mysterious alignment of the stars occurred, sometimes, Mary forgets to be angry. On these days, if she sees Matthew in the car park, or in the hall, she allows him to fall into step beside her. They exchange pleasantries, politely and distantly, and Matthew asks some perfectly innocuous question like a) "What do you think of all the rain?" or b) "Read any good books lately?" or c) "What's doing?", and then it will be half an hour later and Matthew finds himself standing in some inconvenient corner of the hall or half off the curb in the car park, discussing a) the wind current patterns in southern Alaska and the effects thereof on trout migration or b) the genius of Bulgakov in his interpretation of the bildungsroman tradition or c) the difficulty in making any sort of baked goods portioned for one.

"I mean, it feels dreadfully lonely to only use half a pan, but I haven't need for two dozen fairy cakes; I can't eat all of it."

"I can," says Matthew, frankly. "I'm an absolute pig when it comes to these cake-sorts."

Mary laughs, and pokes at Matthew's stomach. "You're all right," she says. "Was that-was that a bit of muscle I felt there?"

"Oh, go on, mock me," he smiles. "Remark next on my svelte figure. Ask me for dieting tips."

Some days, if practice has gone well or there's been a good review or some mysterious alignment of the stars occurred, Mary laughs at Matthew, without any undercurrent of contempt or bitterness; bright-eyed and merry and so impossibly lovely. Matthew laughs too, stupidly and helplessly fond (except-it's a bit more than that; it's quite a bit more than that) and he wonders a little if it isn't so much 'at' as it is 'with'.


End file.
